


i did not wander far

by inkedinserendipity



Series: A Critical Collection [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Birthday Party, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, and then suddenly it's a Big Fucking Deal, and you keep trying to tell them it's no big deal, and you wanted none of it, but someone notices and asks you about it, but they keep asking and more people notice, but you don't want to make a big deal of it, it's that thing, with banners and streamers and everything, yes there's backstory angst, you know that thing where you get hurt by something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:31:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedinserendipity/pseuds/inkedinserendipity
Summary: “Hey,” she says. “Hey, Caleb, when’s your birthday anyway?”Caleb stiffens, cake frozen halfway to his mouth. “It is—it is, ah….”“What, did we miss it?” Nott frowns. Sure, the group hadn’t been too close a month or so ago, but she still would’ve liked to have done something for him. It would be just like Caleb to let his birthday pass by without saying anything. “Or do you not remember it or something?”“Nein—no, I remember my birthday,” he says quietly, looking toward the ground. “It is today.”





	i did not wander far

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: "Okay so Liam and Laura have the same birthday, which makes me headcanon that Caleb and Jester do too. So: they realise this somehow and the whole M9 have a joint birthday party for them. Friendship/found family delightfulness ensues (and bonus points if there's Backstory Angst too!)"
> 
> Yes, that title is a Vax + Vex reference. Have I seen campaign 1? No. Have I already cried about Vax'ildan? Multiple times.

Shopping, Nott thinks, is just like stealing, but from happy people.

Because a lot of the shopping she does is at a five-fingered discount, but the people she buys from tend to laugh a lot more. At least, she hears their laugh; she doesn’t see it too often, because normally Caleb will do the buying (or nowadays Fjord or Beau or whoever else Nott is with at the moment), since most shopkeepers go from happy to pretty grumpy when they realize a goblin is in their store.

But today, she’s buying by herself. She’s solidly disguised as a halfling, but she thinks rather ruefully that it wouldn’t even matter, because she is covered in so many streamers and ribbons and bows and sparklers that the shopkeep could hardly see the color of her skin, let alone her face. 

“Uh, hello,” she squeaks, tottering beneath the weight of the massive thick-papered banner that she and Yasha are going to letter later. Jester said that her perfect birthday party would have a giant birthday banner covered in real dicks, but none of the Nein have real decapitated dicks on hand, and besides Jester doesn’t know about this, so they can’t exactly ask to use her magic ink to  _draw_  her some real dicks, so ink-and-charcoal dicks are going to have to do. “I’d like to buy this, please?”

“Oh-ho!” the shopkeep exclaims. Through bright pink-and-blue streamers that itch at the tip of her nose, Nott can see ruddy cheeks and a beaming grin. Thick-fingered hands pluck her purchases from her arms and look them over. “Cleaning my back room straight out, hmm, little one?”

“Y-yes!” Nott says. “We’re preparing for a party! And we need all of this!”

“Is someone getting married, then?”

“Nope, just a birthday!”

“Wow,” the shopkeep marvels. “You know, ordinarily I’d tally everything up, but I think that’d be a waste of both my time and yours, given the sheer amount you’re carrying in your arms there, little one. So how about this, you give me two gold and we’ll call you even for the lot?”

That’s less than Nott was expecting to pay, honesty. She worries two gold out of her pocket with the one finger not wrapped in enough ribbons to strangle a horse, and chips them to him with a “Thank you!”

“Of course, of course,” the shopkeep chuckles, and Nott can feel his eyes on her the whole way. “Have a good party!”

Nott doesn’t bother responding, dashing out of the store and though the woods back to camp. A few of the ribbons snag on the trees as she goes. Nott lets them be. She has more than enough to compensate. 

“Sweet,” Beau says, when she sees Nott return to the clearing. “That is a ridiculous number of streamers.”

“She’s going to love it,” Nott grins, every single one of her sharp snaggled teeth showing as she lets her disguise drop. Beau grins back, just as sharp, and equally pleased. “I’m gonna Mage Hand those between the trees! Yasha how is the banner coming?”

“Great!” Yasha says, voice high-pitched and just nervous enough to let Nott know that there is, on the flip-side of the massive paper across Yasha is currently scrawling  _Happy Birthday Jester!_ , a failed attempt at neat lettering. 

“It is going fine,” Caleb calls, seated quietly beside Yasha and stroking Frumpkin’s fur absently. When Nott peers closer at him, she sees he has a ruler in one hand, and a pencil in another. Yasha must’ve gotten him for help, then.

“Going fine this time around,” Yasha says ruefully. “But go ahead and put up the streamers. We’ll have this done in no time.”

“Cake’s all ready to go,” Caduceus says pleasantly, as Nott, tongue sticking between her teeth, casts her arcane hand and at least fifteen streamers fluttering up into the sky. “The cinnamon coffee-cake is ready too, and so is the apple pie, but the blueberry cobbler is going to need a couple more minutes.”

“Sounds perfect, thanks Deuces!” Beau hollers. Somehow, she’s wedged her way into a tree, and is muscling little carved unicorns into every crevice of every branch. At the right angle, the sunlight catching their crystalline wings makes them look like they’re flying.

“How much longer until Fjord brings her back?” Yasha calls. 

“I told him to give us at least a couple hours, so fifteen minutes tops,” Beau grunts. Nott veers her arcane hand to the side to wrap a bright pink ribbon around the neck of the wooden unicorn Beau has just finished stuffing inside the hollow of the thick oaken trunk of the tree she’s perched on top of, and Beau gives her a thumbs-up. “Caleb! How much longer?”

“Assuming we have our full two hours, twelve minutes or so.”

“Perfect,” Beau says. “Okay. Cad, you think you’ll be ready by then?”

Caduceus is already nodding, a serene smile set across his face. “Oh, sure.”

“Nott?”

“Of course,” Nott says, winding the streamers across every single branch within range of her spell. When she’s done, this whole clearing will look like a spider’s web of sugar and spun affection. 

“Yasha!”

“Yeah!” Yasha says. “Probably!”

“We will be fine.”

“You’d better be! We gotta get set up for hiding too, don’t forget!”

Nott dismisses that out of hand. She could get herself hidden in a flat two seconds better than any of these fat-footed fools could do with two minutes. 

She scrambles up a nearby tree when her Mage Hand fails her, tying a particularly stubborn knot herself. There, pleased, she sits back on her haunches, basking in the sunlight of the topmost layers of a thin forest canopy, and inspects her handiwork. 

The whole clearing is accented above with a mess of bright streamers of all colors. Trunks of all sizes sport bows of all colors, and there are seven sparklers stuck in the ground at jaunty angles, danced around Caduceus’s masterpiece: a massive vanilla-strawberry cake decorated with whipped cream and sprinkles and chocolate drizzle and every other confectionary he could find at the local bakery. It’s a nightmare of sugar and tooth-rot and Nott knows Jester will absolutely  _adore_  it.

“Uh, I need a little help!” Yasha calls. Beside her, Caleb is flushed a muted red. “I don’t know what a dick looks like!”

“Fuck if I know either,” Beau mutters. Caduceus shrugs. 

“Oh, I’ve got it,” Nott says, and takes the marker from her. 

The lettering on the sign is an obvious, loving mishmash of Yasha’s curved hand and Caleb’s neat writing, which tries to shrink as it progresses, until Yasha’s loud thick strokes pull it back to size. By the beginning of  _Birthday_ , Nott sees, one of them thought to draw guidelines, to keep the letters the same size. It helped shockingly little. 

She’s dotted half the sign with dicks when Beau leaps down from a tree, startling Nott so badly she inks herself on the nose. “What the fuck?”

“They’re almost back!” Beau hisses. “Hurry up! Everyone else, hide!”

Nott scrawls another handful of dicks hastily around the perimeter before shoving the quill hastily in the ground—from nearby, she hears a faint pained noise from Caleb—and scampers up the nearest tree as Beau mirrors her from another. In the work of moments they have the sign swaying from between the two trees, a little precarious, but secure enough to hold, and Beau fits herself into a hollow of one of the branches just in time for—

“So then I shoved his head up against the horse’s butt and told him I would show him just how closely unicorns really do resemble horses minus the horns and that they really  _are_  real except—oh my gods!”

Jester’s ramble cuts off mid-word into an excited and very, very happy scream. “Holy  _shit!”_ she swears, and right then Nott makes a loud, trilling pigeon noise, and Yasha lands on the ground with a massive  _thud_  as they shout, “Surprise!” dropping like little bombs from the trees. 

Beau lands just behind Jester, and Jester scoops her up into a tight hug, beaming. She grunts as she’s lifted off the ground, arms pinned to her sides. “Jester, Jess—can’t breathe, Jess—”

“Thank you so much!” Jester squeals into Beau’s shoulder. Beau’s legs hang limply beneath her, and Beau gives up and slumps over Jester until her cheek rests on top of Jester’s head. “I can’t believe this! My very very own surprise birthday party holy  _shit_  you guys! I’ve never  _had_  one of these before!”

Jester sets Beau down on the ground—she doubles over, clutching her ribs, and Yasha pats her back sympathetically—before racing toward Nott, still beaming. Nott scurries out of the way. “No!” she yelps. “No, I like my breath inside my body!”

“Come back here and let me hug you!” Jester demands, and because it’s her birthday, Nott slows her pace until Jester catches up, rapid footfalls pounding excitedly on the dirt, resigning herself to Beau’s same fate as she’s scooped up into strong tiefling arms and crushed. “Who planned this? Who did this? This all looks so  _good,_ you guys, and the streamers are all my colors, and oh my god are those  _dicks_? Nott, did you draw me dicks?”

“Yes,” Nott wheezes.

“Oh my god! And the—Caduceus is that  _apple pie oh my gods_  I hope you put so much cinnamon on it because I love cinnamon, like,  _so much_  you guys.”

“It has plenty of cinnamon,” Caduceus says warmly. Jester marches over to him, Nott still held in her arms like a bedraggled cat, and bashes her face into his shoulder until he gives her a hug. “Thank you so much I love it!” she exclaims, muffled by his shirt. 

“’Course, Jess,” Beau grins, from a safe distance away. “We couldn’t let your birthday just go by.”

“And please put Nott down, Jester, you are strangling her.”

“Oh!” Jester sets Nott down, who leans against Jester for support as she wheezes for air. “Sorry, Nott! I was just really excited.” Her grin has not faded one bit. “I want some of that pie! And then I want to look at all the dicks because you  _know_  I am going to rate you on all of them, Nott.”

With that distressing proclamation, they break for dessert. And what a spread of desserts it is—the largest is Jester’s favored apple pie, of course, but Fjord digs into the cobbler with glee and Beau looks ready to finish the coffeecake singlehandedly. Nott has to lever several heavy pieces away from those menaces before they polish everything off themselves.

Yasha loops three strands of thick cord around the nearest tree branches, hands Jester a massive stick, and all she has to do is tell Jester that there is candy inside those globes hanging off the strings before Jester starts whaling on them. It takes some coaxing, but eventually Beau explains that this is a game you do  _blindfolded_ , so Jester sits impatiently as Beau blindfolds her with one of her cobalt wrappings and spins her around and sets her loose.

Jester, properly disoriented and giggling excitedly, moves straight toward Fjord, stick raised like a woman on a mission. Fjord scuttles backward, real panic in his eyes, but Jester has no mercy.

“He’s going to get his ass handed to him,” Nott comments satisfiedly to Caleb, who’s picking his way through one of the remaining pieces of cobbler. “On her birthday, too. I couldn’t think of a better gift. When it’s  _my_  birthday, I definitely want to hit Fjord with a giant stick. Best birthday gift.”

“Ja, we will see what can be arranged,  _schatz_ ,” Caleb says, smiling softly. “And we will steal you all sorts of baubles and jewels, okay? And all sorts of buttons.”

“I’d love that,” she says, already imagining it. Oh, she’d clock Fjord so good. Talk about a good birthday gift. What would she get for Caleb? Probably just drop him at a bookstore and hand him a bag full of money. Honestly, that would be gift enough, right? 

Nah, she can do better than that. She’s got time to figure it out, though. Probably.

“Hey,” she says. “Hey, Caleb, when’s your birthday anyway?”

Caleb stiffens, cake frozen halfway to his mouth. “It is—it is, ah….”

“What, did we miss it?” Nott frowns. Sure, the group hadn’t been too close a month or so ago, but she still would’ve liked to have done something for him. It would be just like Caleb to let his birthday pass by without saying anything. “Or do you not remember it or something?”

“Nein—no, I remember my birthday,” he says quietly, looking toward the ground. “It is today.”

Nott stares at him.

“It’s  _what?”_

“It is today,” he says again, still not making eye contact. 

“Today’s Jester’s birthday.”

Caleb’s lips twitch at that, and he looks fondly toward their blue tiefling cleric, who has stopped happily terrorizing Fjord and is now decimating the second of the three structures, candy already scattered like so much gold on the ground by her feet. “Ja, exactly.”

“You two have the same one?”

“Not so loudly,” he shushes. “Yes, we do. It is a coincidence, no? But this is—this is a day for Jester. We can celebrate that some other time.”

Nott’s frown deepens. “No, we won’t,” Nott says. “You’ll keep putting it off until we forget about your birthday.”

Caleb looks, suddenly, guilty. “I did not plan to—”

“You did,” Nott says firmly. She stands. “And now I’m gonna—"

Caleb pulls her back down by the sleeve. “Please do not,” he whispers quickly. “This is, this is Jester’s day, please do not ruin it, okay? We will do something else. You and me, okay? This week sometime.”

“ _Ruin_  it? Caleb, we—we want to celebrate this.” Nott brandishes a fork—sparkling clean, of course, she hadn’t used it—at these idiots they call their friends, all gathered around Jester, who erupts in cheers as a shower of candy rains by her feet. She whoops, hollers, and charges toward the third. Beau has to duck out of the way of her first swipe. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“It was not a big deal, really,” Caleb mutters. “I have had many more of them than Jester has, and it is not so worth celebrating anyway.”

“None of us actually know how old Jester is,” Nott reminds him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Caleb hesitates, his gaze flicking briefly to hers before flitting back down. His shoulders are hunched. “You would want me to, to do something for my own birthday. But when Jester said when hers was, I did not…I did not want to, to make this, this should just be about her, you know? This should be her day. This—this  _is_  her day. We have made it her day.”

“I want to know these things, Caleb,” Nott says, hurt creeping unintentionally into her voice. Caleb’s face falls. “No, it’s not—I don’t have to know everything. But I want to celebrate these things for you. With you. I wish you’d said something.”

Caleb shrugs uncomfortably, still avoiding eye contact. There’s a sour feeling in her stomach, now, when she looks at the bright streamers she hung, the platters of pastries piled high, the great banner draped between the trees with Caleb’s stencilled lines to guide the lettering.

Cheers erupt from the clearing as Jester slams her makeshift club into the third globe. She whoops and tears off the blindfold, digging excitedly through the dirt to count her winnings. Fjord helps her sort. 

“If you two keep whispering forever, you’ll miss the candy,” Beau grins, strolling toward them. She notices Nott’s expression, then Caleb’s, and frowns. “C’mon, man, it’s Jester’s birthday. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Caleb says, too quickly. Beau’s eyes narrow. “No, there is nothing wrong. This is good, Jester got her candy, ja?”

His accent has thickened. Nott notices, and she knows Beau does, too. Beau looks a question at her— _what’s_ _wrong with him?_ —and Nott just shakes her head. 

Beau folds herself in front of Caleb, elbows braced on her knees, and catches his gaze and holds it, steady, unwavering. “All right,” she says firmly. “Easy way or hard way, Widogast?”

“Easy way,” Caleb mutters, and Beau punches his knee gently, grinning. 

“Good. Okay. Now. Why are you sitting over here frowning?”

“I am not frowning, Nott is frowning.”

“Hey—”

“And now you’re deflecting. Spill, and quick, ‘cause I want some of those caramels before Jester eats ‘em all.”

“I do not mean to keep you—”

“You said easy way, Widogast, now fucking  _spill_ , dude.”

“It is my birthday today.”

Beau stares at him, just as Nott had done moments before. “Dude, why didn’t you say something?”

“Because this is Jester’s day!” he snaps, irritation mounting. Beau glares at him, unimpressed. “I did not want to ruin it.”

“Okay, one day we’re going to have to talk about your definition of the word  _ruin_ —”

“I brought  _candy!”_  Jester sing-songs, arms cradled about herself and absolutely spilling over with chocolates and caramels and even delicately wrapped pastries that are now hopelessly smushed from being battered with a giant stick. “I brought them over here because you guys were sitting around like a bunch of logs and weren’t gonna get  _any_  if I didn’t bring them to you.” 

She dumps them into a basket Caduceus has wordlessly provided—incidentally, the same basket they bought them in—before lobbing a handful of caramels toward Beau, who catches them easily. “Caleb, Nott, do you want chocolates or pastries?”

“Ah, chocolate, please.”

“Same.”

“Here you go!” Jester hands them their chocolates cheerfully, then frowns. “You two look super sad. What’s wrong?”

Caleb sighs. “It is my birthday today.” Seeing Jester’s face fall, he adds, quickly, “but it is not such a big tradition where I am from. It is much bigger in Nicodranas, I think.”

“But you were planning what you wanted to do for mine,” Nott points archly. “And you helped throw this huge party for Jester.”

“With candy and everything,” Jester says, and physically lifts Beau to deposit her further from Caleb, squishing between the two of them. “You should have said something! Then we could have done something for you too!”

“It wouldn’t have been any trouble at all,” Yasha says softly. “You know that.”

“Ja, yes, but it is not worth—” Caleb waves a hand through the air. “I did not, I did not mean to make this such a big deal. I am sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry!” Jester says, and wraps him in a huge sideways hug that has him letting out an  _oof_  as the air flees his lungs. Her whole face is alight with glee. “This way we’re twins now! ‘Cause we have the same birthday, see?”

Caleb gasps a little as Jester loosens her hold. “I do not think—that is how twins work,” he manages.

Jester waves a dismissive hand through the air. “Well, it’s how twins should work,” she says firmly. “It’s how we work. I always wanted a twin! And it’s your birthday, Caleb! Happy birthday!”

“Ah…thank you,” Caleb says. A resigned smile creeps across his face at Jester’s enthusiasm. He still can’t move his arms. 

“Yeah, happy birthday, man,” Beau says, halfway between a threat and a genuine well-wish. 

“We will go back into town later tonight and find the best and biggest bookstore in the whole place,” Jester declares, unwrapping another candy and popping it into her mouth. “And then you will pick out—one, two…” she counts quickly, “—six books, and then we will buy them for you! And those will be your presents!”

Caleb chokes on air. “Jester, that is a lot of money—”

“I’m in,” Fjord says. Caleb double-takes toward him, and Fjord shoots him a pair of finger guns. Caleb doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with that.

“I don’t know the value of money anyway,” Caduceus says serenely. “If that’s what will make you happy, then I’ll certainly buy you a book.”

Nott burrows into his side. Slowly, Caleb wraps an arm around her shoulders, and pulls her close. Nott bumps her forehead against his shoulder, accepting his silent apology. “I’ll buy you  _two_.”

“I’ll get you three,” Beau challenges.

“Hey fuck you—!”

“Guys!” Jester says, and smacks Caleb on the head with a pastry. “You didn’t give us time to pick out good presents for you, dummy. So now we’re gonna do this for you! And then after that, once you have your books, we’re all going to find a bathhouse with lavender oils and we’re all going to take a long bath, since it’s also  _my_  birthday and after you drag us to a bookstore I’m dragging us to a bathhouse. See? It’s fair that way.”

Somewhere along the way, the resignation in Caleb’s smile had shifted to bewilderment, and hovers now between surprise and a quiet fondness. “You always surprise me, Jester.”

“Of course I do,” she says, and smiles widely at him, plopping a chocolate into his mouth without warning. “And besides! This is great, you know! I always wanted a twin!”

“Twins,” Caleb echoes softly, and Jester beams at him, throwing her arms around him again. “Ja, we are twins then. I…have always wanted one too.”

“Perfect,” she declares, slightly muffled into his shoulder. He dodges her horn to hug her back. “This is the best birthday present ever!”

This time there is only that fondness in Caleb’s smile when he says, “You know, I think it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me at @inkedinserendipity on [tumblr](http://www.inkedinserendipity.tumblr.com)!


End file.
